Survey reveals app delivery ‘chasm’

Nearly three quarters of IT departments aren’t equipped to handle the increasing business demand for custom applications, according to a survey of 470 global IT and business professionals released today. The survey revealed that this “app delivery chasm” will get worse as businesses look to compete with apps and IT struggles to keep up using outdated approaches.

The survey, conducted by Mendix in North America and Europe, concluded that a number of factors are contributing to the app delivery chasm. It found that demand for custom business applications is growing, fuelled by the need for mobile and customer-facing apps. However, because IT teams lack sufficient capabilities for rapid app delivery, output isn’t keeping pace, performance is suffering and backlogs are growing.

“While there has been plenty of anecdotal evidence that an app delivery chasm exists, this is the first study to define just how acute the problem is and how many hurdles companies face as they look for a solution,” said Derek Roos, CEO and co-founder of Mendix. “The numbers show that businesses increasingly need new apps to innovate and compete in an evolving marketplace but are missing out on opportunities because IT cannot deliver at a fast enough pace.”

Digital Transformation is Fuelling Demand for Custom Business Applications
The survey revealed growing demand for custom business applications, particularly customer-facing and mobile apps, cited by 69 percent and 75 percent of respondents respectively. Of those with a mobile agenda, 68 percent report needing multi-device, multi-channel apps versus standalone smartphone or tablet apps.
But pure demand is just the start. In addition to needing more apps, the survey found that the business is expecting shorter turnarounds; requesting more changes, more often; and looking to increase their overall involvement in app delivery projects.

“The heightened sense of urgency reflects the growing market and competitive pressures many organisations face, which are driving the need to innovate at a much quicker pace,” Roos said. “This is putting added pressure on already strained IT teams to deliver more—and more quickly—without additional resources. Those without the right tools find themselves further and further behind.”

The Chasm is Widening, Projects are Ailing and Backlogs are Growing
While business is demanding more activity, the survey showed IT’s output is stagnant, which is creating a problem in the form of growing backlogs. Overall, 82 percent of respondents report having a project backlog while 89 percent were unable to reduce their backlog year over year.

At the same time, project performance is suffering. On average, nearly three-quarters of companies surveyed are failing to consistently meet key project success criteria, including delivering on time, on budget, meeting business requirements and generating quantifiable business value.

Among the factors contributing to lacklustre IT performance was the high number of development environments lacking key elements to enable rapid, iterative and collaborative cycles. For example, 75 percent of developers surveyed said they can’t easily create and share working prototypes for end user feedback, and 78 percent of companies lack sufficient tools for enabling business-level developers to build apps.

3 Success Factors to Cross the App Delivery Chasm
Comparing business demand against IT readiness, the survey revealed 71 percent of companies aren’t equipped to handle app delivery demands. But the research did uncover three factors successful organisations implement that facilitate rapid application delivery:
· Implement an application strategy – Respondents that have implemented methods, such as Gartner’s Pace-Layered Application Strategy, reported higher percentages of applications delivered on time, under budget, meeting requirements and generating value.
· Involve the business – Respondents that listed high levels of IT-business collaboration and enabled citizen developers to build apps scored significantly higher on each of the above project success criteria.
· Modernise the development environment – Organisations with more advanced development environments that facilitate easy sharing of prototypes for user feedback and include an integrated deployment environment are more successful than their peers.

“The App Delivery Chasm is a very real challenge facing CIOs and their teams. With more and more demand from our business, the only way out of this hole is to change the paradigm and deliver applications in a drastically faster, more collaborative way,” said Charles Schiappa, CIO of MassHousing. “With the help of Mendix, we’ve taken projects from years of planning and development effort to complete solutions delivered in weeks, with business stakeholders and users much more engaged in the process.”